Police investigating the shooting of two prominent loyalists have placed a man on the witness protection programme, it emerged tonight.
Security sources confirmed that a man was placed in protective custody believing his life to be in danger.
The move follows last Friday's killing of Mr Stephen Warnock, a leading member of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, and the wounding of Mr Jim Gray, East Belfast commander of the Ulster Defence Association.
Loyalist sources said the man had supplied information to the LVF about the Warnock killing.
Three days after Warnock was shot dead, the LVF shot Mr Gray in what was believed to have been a revenge attack.
As fears of a loyalist feud intensified, the LVF then passed information to the UDA explaining its reasons for shooting Mr Gray. It is claimed this information came from the man now under police protection.
Mr Warnock, a leading drugs dealer, was shot dead as he sat in his BMW in Newtownards, Co Down while his terror-stricken three-year-old daughter sat in the back seat.
Mr Gray was shot in the face by a lone gunman on Monday night outside the house of one of Mr Warnock's brothers in east Belfast.
According to sources, the man currently under protection appeared before the UDA's inner council in a north Belfast pub on Wednesday to admit having spoken to the LVF.
The man, who is believed to be a close associate of a leading east Belfast loyalist, later approached police to say his life was in danger.
Meanwhile, security sources now believe loyalists were behind an earlier attack on Mr Davy Mahood, a member of the Ulster Political Research Group which has close links to the UDA.
Mr Mahood, who was uninjured in the attack, had blamed republicans for the attack.